Dumpster Ride in July

On Saturday, Eric and I led our monthly "Dumpster Ride and Freegan Meal" event. I discovered that it has been one month more than a year since we started the dumpster tour ride.

This year's July ride was successful and fun. We had a group of about 15 riders, and they all stayed on through the end of the meal. Usually we start with a bigger group and about half of them drop out before we get to wherever we have the dinner. Everything went very smoothly. This was the first ride since our exciting May event in which we were followed by a police helicopter and briefly waylaid by officers after our first stop of the night. no such surprises popped up this time. We finished our raiding quickly, gathering a goodly amount of food for a tasty meal at Throop Church.

One trivial thing I noticed about the ride was that each stop was progressively better than the last. We went to three stores for our food. The first was a 99cent store in a residential neighborhood. The food was crap, but we found a couple of men's collared shirts and had general fun. Then we stopped at a nicer grocery store where we found lots of food, mostly packaged, processed stuff (but damn tasty). Our last stop was the best - a higher-end grocery store that carries a lot of fresh, organic produce. We got a lot of fresh fruit there. Posher stores have higher standards, and therefore throw away more, better quality food.

For dinner at midnight, we had great salads and other tasty treats. My favorite thing (besides the fresh watermelon) was the hamburgers that we cooked with mushrooms and served loaded with vegetables. YUM!

Photo of the Day

Here's a bountiful basket of beautiful fruit. Eric and I took two of the new LACW interns dumpster diving at our favorite Pasadena spot last night. We hauled home about ten boxes of fresh produce. I'm about to make dinner from it all, including the abundance of packaged mushrooms we scored.

My Alternative Fourth of July Weekend

I had a fantastic Fourth of July Weekend, and not because I like the holiday (which I truly don't). It was so great because spent it with wonderful people doing fun and (sometimes) meaningful things. Saturday started, as always, with work at the "Hippie Kitchen". Later, the LACW community went to a rockin' music party hosted by community friends, where I met up with Eric and his charming daughter. That full first day of the weekend ended with me picking up an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a few years (as he lives in Sydney and has just spent the last year traveling in Mexico). My friend Ash is also a former member of the Jesus Christians; he left that community a couple years before I did. He also happens to be one of the main people to influence me towards a freegan lifestyle. You may recognize his name (if you're a regular reader of this blog) from my repeated posting of this awesome freegan video. Below is another video (please be patient through the first 30 seconds of silence) about freeganism that Ash has appeared in. And click here to read an article by Ash that was included in a small booklet the JCs wrote about freeganism.



Anyway, Ash and I went with the LA Catholic Worker Community to celebrate the patriotic holiday on Sunday by mourning the deaths caused by our country's imperialistic foreign policies. We helped to set up the Arlington West - Santa Monica Memorial next to the pier. It was hard and sobering work. I have also mentioned this thing before - in this post from May 4.

The rest of the weekend was pure fun. We met up with Eric on Sunday afternoon. Instead of watching fireworks, we went dumpster diving (of course)! In reward for our hard work, we had a midnight snack/sushi feast. We said goodbye to Ash on Tuesday, wishing him well on his return to Australia.

I was proud to have spent the "birthday of America" doing things that pointed out the two main flaws in America's society - its violence and its consumerism-induced wastefulness.

Comic of the Day

Actually, this was in the paper last week; but I can call it what I want.

Yes and No, Mr. Bliss. Food for thought, indeed...

Defining Freeganism Pt. 2

Since I am short on time, as usual, I will post another article that has caught my eye in recent times. This one was in the New York Times Magazine this month and is about a group Freegans in Buffalo, NY who have set up a community in a squat. I liked the article; it showed the great diversity in the types of people who adopt freegan ideals. It also showed the movement to be more than just dumpster diving. Quotable quote:

Kit is a freegan. He maintains that our society wastes far too much. Freeganism is a bubbling stew of various ideologies, drawing on elements of communism, radical environmentalism, a zealous do-it-yourself work ethic and an old-fashioned frugality of the sock-darning sort. Freegans are not revolutionaries. Rather, they aim to challenge the status quo by their lifestyle choices. Above all, freegans are dedicated to salvaging what others waste and — when possible — living without the use of currency. “I really dislike spending money,” Kit told me. “It doesn’t feel natural.”

The Article: "The Freegan Establishment"

Pictures from the article

"The Real Cost of Cheap Food"

Shortly after making my post yesterday, I ran into this fantastic article in Time magazine. The piece was written last August and is called "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food". It's an excellent article about all of the important food issues of our day. I highly recommend that you read it!


quotable quote from the piece:

"But we don't have the luxury of philosophizing about food. With the exhaustion of the soil, the impact of global warming and the inevitably rising price of oil — which will affect everything from fertilizer to supermarket electricity bills — our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later. As the developing world grows richer, hundreds of millions of people will want to shift to the same calorie-heavy, protein-rich diet that has made Americans so unhealthy — demand for meat and poultry worldwide is set to rise 25% by 2015 — but the earth can no longer deliver. Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health costs — and bland taste. Sustainable food has an élitist reputation, but each of us depends on the soil, animals and plants — and as every farmer knows, if you don't take care of your land, it can't take care of you."

(See pictures of what the world eats.)

Greetings from The Farm (Eating Right)

For the last few days, I have been on vacation from LA and that it entails. It's been a good time to slow down, to think and to recharge. My weekends are never times of rest when I'm at home because we're always busy doing something, whether it's community duty or "fun time" or dumpster meetup related.

I've been taking my time off in an organic farming community in Camarillo, CA called the "Abundant Table Project" or "Join the Farm!". There's a small group of girls ("interns") who live here to tend the farm and grow in community. They're very welcoming and friendly folks. I've really been enjoying my time here.

Something that I particularly love about this place is how well we eat here. We have full reign of the goodies that we harvest from the fields (they have roughly four acres of organic veggies) and the produce that the girls trade for at the local framers' markets. Since I have been here, I have been eating raw kale salads, fresh fruits, Swiss chard cooked with tomatoes and chili and fresh eggs from their friendly backyard hens. I have a deep-rooted feeling that this is how humans beings are really meant to eat. I'm sick of these over-processed foods that are shoved down our throats through aggressive advertising. How can anyone think of selling such unhealthy things to people? How many of our health problems could be reduced if we ate more healthily? How much easier would it be to eat right if we were sold the right foods (or if we grew them ourselves)?

I go home tonight, to a community in transition. It will be straight into the summer program, with two new interns to meet and instruct. 

                                     

Until next time, 

greetings from the chicken. ^